It’s another Saturday, so for those who tune in, welcome to a diary discussing the Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic Campaign. If you’ve missed out, you can catch up anytime: Just visit our group or follow Nuts & Bolts Guide. Every week I try to tackle issues I’ve been asked about, and with the help of other campaign workers and notes, we tackle subjects about how to improve and build better campaigns.
This week we are talking about donor abuse. No, I’m not talking about Democratic candidates running in super-red districts, or candidates who wage primary campaigns. Donor abuse, however, can be a problem in any campaign. Donors provide the lifeblood of resources that all campaigns need to function. Donors like investing in campaigns where they feel their donation is respected, the resources are well-spent, and communications are well-maintained.
The candidate-donor relationship can turn toxic, however, if donors feel that a campaign is behaving in a way that disrespects that relationship.
This week, let’s take on how to avoid donor abuse.
Before we get started discussing donor abuse, you might look back to a Nuts & Bolts entry from last year about how to maintain the campaign-donor relationship. Keeping good relationships with donors is a big component of avoiding donor-abuse issues. Still, most cases of donor abuse are about promises made, how funds are used, and how realistic communications with donors are.
Long-shot campaigns are not (necessarily) donor abuse
Democratic candidates running in bright-red districts are often singled out for trying to abuse donors. Why invest in a race that is unlikely to succeed due to the voter makeup of a district or the historical trends? Still, Democratic efforts need candidates to run in those districts to help turn out Democratic voters that may matter in congressional or statewide races. Democratic donors who live in that district are well aware that their district may be difficult to win, but they still want to support a candidate that will represent them in a campaign. There is nothing abusive about the donor relationship in such a campaign as long as the donors are clearly aware of the odds, and the campaign uses the funds received as donors expect it to: to increase Democratic turnout and deliver a Democratic message to voters who feel neglected.
How the donor relationship can become abusive
Donors may have a personal reasons to back any candidate. They like them. They know them. No matter the odds, they want it known that they support a specific message or cause. Some want to back a candidate they see as a sure winner. There are hundreds of great reasons to back any Democratic campaign, anywhere in the country.
Donors, however, have every reason to expect that their donations and support will be handled with respect. Donors expect campaigns to make expenditures that are intended to work on behalf of a campaign or to help build future Democratic efforts.
There are certainly famous Republican examples of donor abuse, such as Tom DeLay deciding not to run for re-election and instead using his campaign account to pay ongoing legal costs. While abuse like that is much harder to get away with today, Democratic campaigns can struggle with donor abuse if donors believe that overhead costs outstrip efforts to get elected.
If you work on a campaign, whether it is a long shot or a sure thing, donors want to see you handle their contributions seriously. Whether they gave $20 or $2,800, they will watch how your campaign spends.
Campaigns that are toxic to donors
As I stated, there is nothing wrong with a long-shot campaign that helps turn out Democratic voters. Still, campaigns that know they have no shot, but continue to raise and spend money in ways that do not help overall Democratic campaign efforts, can quickly become toxic to donors. Donors become angry when they invest in campaigns that are later seen as having been ways to make money for consultants, to pay for a candidate’s meals in their own district, or for travel to sell a book or raise a public profile, with no real work done either to win or to help Democratic efforts in general.
This can happen whether your campaign is a run for a local office or a run for the U.S. presidency. If your campaign begins and ends without any actual accomplishments that you can show donors were achieved with the donations you received from them, you risk becoming a toxic campaign. Your campaign can lose, and lose big—but if on the night of your primary or general election you can’t tell donors about things you did to help Democratic efforts in general, and can’t make it clear that the resources they gave you were spent well, then many of your donors are going to feel that they wasted their money.
These kind of toxic campaigns can burn out donors, who will feel that they shouldn’t have donated at all, and can make them less likely to invest in campaigns again in the future.
By the time you get to the end of your campaign, you have to be able to tell donors that you effectively made use of their donations, and what exactly you accomplished.
Next week on Nuts & Bolts: your questions, answered.